1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a control technology adapted when consumable material such as a toner is exchanged when an image forming apparatus is in a power saving mode
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, an image forming apparatus comprising a power saving mode, which reduces standby power when the image forming device is deactivated, is being established (For example, United States Patent Application Publication No. 2011/0080605). Such image forming apparatus needs to respond to a facsimile reception and a print job reception while reducing power when the image forming apparatus is in the power saving mode. Therefore, the image forming apparatus stops power supply to an engine controller when it is in the power saving mode while supplying power to an image controller communicating with outside.
Also, it is highly desired to achieve power saving in the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus is therefore controlled to shift from a standby mode, during which the image forming apparatus stands by a start of an image formation, to the power saving mode after the image formation. This increases a time-period during which the image forming apparatus stands by in the power saving mode.
Further, recently, consumable material such as recovery toner container, which is used to recover toner or transfer residual toner as removed, is often exchanged by a user. For example, some image forming apparatus display an exchange procedure on an operation unit. In the exchange procedure, the user depresses a power saving mode release button and the like mounted on the operation unit of the image forming apparatus. This returns the image forming apparatus from the power saving mode to the standby mode. In response to this, the exchange procedure is displayed on the operation unit.
However, when the consumable material such as the toner or the recovery toner container is exchanged while the image apparatus is in the power saving mode, a circuit for detecting the exchange of the consumable material is not powered on. Therefore, there remains a problem that it is not possible to detect whether or not the consumable material is exchanged by the user.
If it is configured such that information on residual amount of the consumable material such as toner is not held by the consumable material itself, the residual amount of the consumable material is managed by the image forming apparatus. Therefore, when the consumable material is exchanged in such a configuration, there causes a mismatch between the residual amounts of the consumable material such as toner recorded on the image forming apparatus and the actual residual amount of the consumable material (actual residual amount) mounted on the image forming apparatus. This may cause a situation in which a sign such as “Prepare toner bottle”, “Exchange recover toner bottle” and the like does not disappear so that the image forming apparatus cannot shift to the power saving mode.
Also, in this state, if the image forming apparatus is caused to be shifted to the power saving mode, as long as the image forming apparatus is returned from the power saving mode to the standby mode by the user's depression of the power saving mode release button mounted on the operation unit, the information to guide the exchange procedure may not be displayed on a display screen.